398 EDWARDIAN LIBERALISM
ning of 1908 was called the Women's Freedom League. The
division was over internal questions—the 'autocracy5 of Mrs.
Pankhurst; it did not weaken the urge towards militancy.
The tactics employed in these early years were entirely directed
against liberals; the logic which they expressed being that only
the government could put through a Suffrage Bill, and therefore
it must be opposed until it consented to do so. At by-elections
every attempt was made to embarrass the liberal candidate, and
no cabinet minister could open his mouth anywhere without
interruptions. Friends of the suffrage, e.g. Grey and Lloyd
George, were attacked no less than its opponents, e.g. Asquith
and McKenna; and all sorts of devices, such as padlocking
themselves to fixtures, were adopted by interrupters to prevent
their removal. The tactics were carried to Downing Street and
to the galleries of parliament. But at this stage little damage was
done to property beyond some window breaking; and the diffi-
cult problem for the home office did not arise till later.
On the suffrage cause itself the first influence of militancy was
stimulating. Later the hostilities which it aroused set the clock
back. Had it not been persisted in, some kind of Women's Suf-
frage Bill would probably have passed the commons between
1906 and 1914. But calculations like this were almost irrelevant
to most of the women concerned. What drew them together and
drove them on was a spirit of revolt. The vote was not sought
for any practical object, but as a symbol of equality. They were
obsessed by an inferiority complex. And similarly upon politics
at large their militancy had more effect than their suffragism.
The means mattered rather than the end, and indeed conflicted
with it. For while the vote presupposes the rule of free persuasion,
the W.S.P.U. leaders proclaimed by word and deed, that the way
to get results was through violence. Such doctrines are always
liable to become popular, when a politically inexperienced class
or classes come into the public life of a nation. Often it seems
plausible then to win the game by a ctry-on' at breaking the
rules. But of course if others follow suit, there is no game. The
years 1906-14 in Great Britain witnessed a crescendo of rule-
breaking in this sense—by labour strikers and their Syndicalists,
by the house of lords and its Die-hards, by the Ulster Volunteers,
by the Irish Volunteers, and by many others; until the fabric
of democracy came into real danger. In that direction the
W.S.P.U. set the earliest and not the least strident example;